What do you think?
Rate this book
Le Diable en tête
En cinq chapitres organisés selon une passionnante et savante architecture, un demi-siècle y défile en effet - depuis la dernière guerre, le conflit algérien, les années 60, l'aventure gauchiste et maoïste, la décennie 70 enflammée par les bombes des terroristes, jusqu'à aujourd'hui où se clôt ce roman itinérant, cosmopolite et tentaculaire qui éclaire une époque haute en couleurs, en horreurs et, malgré tout, en espérances.
503 pages, Broché
First published January 1, 1984
2 people are currently reading
68 people want to read
About the author
Bernard-Henri Lévy
107 books241 followersBernard-Henri Lévy is a philosopher, activist, filmmaker, and author of more than thirty books including The Genius of Judaism, American Vertigo, Barbarism with a Human Face, and Who Killed Daniel Pearl? His writing has appeared extensively in publications throughout Europe and the United States. His documentaries include Peshmerga, The Battle of Mosul, The Oath of Tobruk, and Bosna! Lévy is cofounder of the antiracist group SOS Racisme and has served on diplomatic missions for the French government.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 22, 2020
Je ne sais qu'en penser. Les personnages existent, pourtant ils sont assez vite agaçants. L'intrigue mise en place pendant la guerre et à la libération m'a captivée. Les conflits de coq beau père contre beau fils racontes sous format d'interview m'ont ennuyés. La fin m'est tombée des mains et j'ai abandonné ma lecture. Et pourtant l'idée de faire vivre le héros à travers le regard de ses proches est une bonne idée.
March 7, 2025
Nonsense.
March 4, 2013
Le Diable En Tete Bernhard Henri Levy Paris Grasset 1984 499
pages ISBN 2©246©32461©0
The life of a wealthy Frenchman born during the occupation,
father executed as a NAZI collaborator, second husband of mother
a resistance hero. Boy grows up to become a left wing terrorist
irresistable to women. Commits suicide in Jerusalem in 1980s
(Actually, this is left unclear. He writes that he is going to
commit suicide, then disappears. Has he also failed at this...?
Another cheap shot at the romantic left by the author.)
demoralized by bankruptcy of his life and ideals.
Finished reading it in April 1989. Mixed impression. Huge
vanity of the author who introduces himself into the novel, has
his fictional hero meet himself and then records his favorable
impressions. Inaptitude of the fictional hero to serve as a
model for "the" terrorist personality. Too rich and not
sufficiently dominated by ideological considerations. Falseness
of the human relations depicted. Jewish lover named Marie (!)
Rosenfeld particularly unbelievable. Book©soaked provincial
bourgeoise comes to Paris for the first time to attend
university; immediately meets and goes to bed with our hero and
writes home to her twin sister about the experience in terms that
a woman might use during intercourse to excite herself or her
lover, but which I can't believe any woman would ever use in cold
blood in a letter to another woman, especially not her sister. A
chapter later she reports (again to her sister) performing
fellatio on him for the first time, saying that she had always,
until that moment, refused him this boon, though in the earlier
letter she had gone especially ecstatic about her total inability
to refuse him anything. Ridicules his Maoist belief in the
peculiar virtue of the working class in her letters and seems
always to remain a typical middle class girl in her political
views, yet remains unbelievably passive in the face of strong
evidence that her lover is plotting the murder of a Renault
executive. Doesn't even try to talk him out of it and doesn't
report any sensation on learning that the murder has in fact been
carried out other than extreme sexual desire at the spectacle of
his calm when the police come to search their house.
Vast silliness. A certain variety of French intellectual has
finally been weened away from Stalinism only to embrace
Reaganism. I think the trouble is that moderate political and
philosophical views are unlikely ever to make a big sensation at
gatherings of the chic Parisian literati.
The first part of the book was noticeably better than all the
rest. I mean the part where he pretends to be reproducing the
diary entries of the terrorist's mother. I have the strong
feeling Levy was describing his own mother, or at least a woman
of that generation and class whom he knew very well. Very, very
attractive literary creation --a woman of wealth and
distinction privileged to live her life around the ideals of
being beautiful herself, being surrounded by beauty, shining in �society by her conversation and grace, and being loved, all
combined with a good measure of courage and a touching religious
faith. Par contre, Levy can never have known any real
terrorists.
One especially bizarre and mysterious incident in which the
terrorist's lover, Marie, having told him about the existence of
a twin sister and admitting that in the past they used their
identicality to play tricks, including sexual tricks, on men they
knew, plays an elaborate charade with him in which she pretends
to be her sister pretending to be her. Ostensibly, the reason
for this game is to punish him for his discovered unfaithfulness
by making him think that she (Marie) cares so little for his love
as to make him casually available to her sister without informing
him. Aside from making it clear how difficult it would be
actually to maintain such a charade for any time (Marie has to
keep extensive notes of what she has said and done under each
persona), the thing seems perfectly pointless. Marie is
disappointed in her revenge when the terrorist clearly begins to
prefer her as her sister to her as herself. She has to summon
her real sister to town finally and introduce them as proof that
the other one was really herself all the time. I suspect that
the whole incident has more to do with certain discoveries the
author, Levy, has been making about the nature of celebrity than
with anything properly connected with this story (the public
loves the idea they have of Levy as the handsome talented
"nouveau philosophe" rather than the real Levy, whatever he might
be like.) We all want to be loved for ourselves I guess.
pages ISBN 2©246©32461©0
The life of a wealthy Frenchman born during the occupation,
father executed as a NAZI collaborator, second husband of mother
a resistance hero. Boy grows up to become a left wing terrorist
irresistable to women. Commits suicide in Jerusalem in 1980s
(Actually, this is left unclear. He writes that he is going to
commit suicide, then disappears. Has he also failed at this...?
Another cheap shot at the romantic left by the author.)
demoralized by bankruptcy of his life and ideals.
Finished reading it in April 1989. Mixed impression. Huge
vanity of the author who introduces himself into the novel, has
his fictional hero meet himself and then records his favorable
impressions. Inaptitude of the fictional hero to serve as a
model for "the" terrorist personality. Too rich and not
sufficiently dominated by ideological considerations. Falseness
of the human relations depicted. Jewish lover named Marie (!)
Rosenfeld particularly unbelievable. Book©soaked provincial
bourgeoise comes to Paris for the first time to attend
university; immediately meets and goes to bed with our hero and
writes home to her twin sister about the experience in terms that
a woman might use during intercourse to excite herself or her
lover, but which I can't believe any woman would ever use in cold
blood in a letter to another woman, especially not her sister. A
chapter later she reports (again to her sister) performing
fellatio on him for the first time, saying that she had always,
until that moment, refused him this boon, though in the earlier
letter she had gone especially ecstatic about her total inability
to refuse him anything. Ridicules his Maoist belief in the
peculiar virtue of the working class in her letters and seems
always to remain a typical middle class girl in her political
views, yet remains unbelievably passive in the face of strong
evidence that her lover is plotting the murder of a Renault
executive. Doesn't even try to talk him out of it and doesn't
report any sensation on learning that the murder has in fact been
carried out other than extreme sexual desire at the spectacle of
his calm when the police come to search their house.
Vast silliness. A certain variety of French intellectual has
finally been weened away from Stalinism only to embrace
Reaganism. I think the trouble is that moderate political and
philosophical views are unlikely ever to make a big sensation at
gatherings of the chic Parisian literati.
The first part of the book was noticeably better than all the
rest. I mean the part where he pretends to be reproducing the
diary entries of the terrorist's mother. I have the strong
feeling Levy was describing his own mother, or at least a woman
of that generation and class whom he knew very well. Very, very
attractive literary creation --a woman of wealth and
distinction privileged to live her life around the ideals of
being beautiful herself, being surrounded by beauty, shining in �society by her conversation and grace, and being loved, all
combined with a good measure of courage and a touching religious
faith. Par contre, Levy can never have known any real
terrorists.
One especially bizarre and mysterious incident in which the
terrorist's lover, Marie, having told him about the existence of
a twin sister and admitting that in the past they used their
identicality to play tricks, including sexual tricks, on men they
knew, plays an elaborate charade with him in which she pretends
to be her sister pretending to be her. Ostensibly, the reason
for this game is to punish him for his discovered unfaithfulness
by making him think that she (Marie) cares so little for his love
as to make him casually available to her sister without informing
him. Aside from making it clear how difficult it would be
actually to maintain such a charade for any time (Marie has to
keep extensive notes of what she has said and done under each
persona), the thing seems perfectly pointless. Marie is
disappointed in her revenge when the terrorist clearly begins to
prefer her as her sister to her as herself. She has to summon
her real sister to town finally and introduce them as proof that
the other one was really herself all the time. I suspect that
the whole incident has more to do with certain discoveries the
author, Levy, has been making about the nature of celebrity than
with anything properly connected with this story (the public
loves the idea they have of Levy as the handsome talented
"nouveau philosophe" rather than the real Levy, whatever he might
be like.) We all want to be loved for ourselves I guess.
November 22, 2015
3,5/5 . Saga familial se transformant au fil des décennies en essai politico-historique ou le terrorisme et le fascisme maltraite l'âme et les pensées d'un fils de riche séducteur, manipulateur et perdu. Le premier roman de Levy se promène du journal intime, à un roman épistolaire, dévie en 'interrogatoire de police, à la confession, au témoignage et quoi encore. Audacieux, ambitieux, tantôt prenant, tantôt lassant, Le Diable en tête cherche quoi au juste? Je cherche encore. Malgré tout, ce Prix Médicis 1984, nous rappelle que le terrorisme est le leurre du malade mal aimé, de l'idiot manipulé et du sans vergogne no future.
May 10, 2013
Lu il y a très longtemps sans laisser de souvenir très précis...
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews